Unfathomable
by Forever Champion
Summary: There is a cross, and there is a stone table. Hanging from a cliff face, Edmund has a glimpse of both. (Golden Age)


**Disclaimer: I cannot lay any claim to the magic of C.S. Lewis's works, so there's no profit to be made by this fic. My writing is also inspired by many original Narnia fanfiction writers, particularly WillowDryad whose stories seamlessly incorporate fantasy with spiritualism. Hope you enjoy!**

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_Oh Aslan, please!_

Rain misted on his cheeks. The soft patter had already drenched his garments and heavy cloak; diluted the warm trickle springing from his right eyebrow; muted any sounds from above. It dripped from his nose, a persistent tickling sensation nearly as maddening as the pain crippling his left arm. The other arm had gone numb long ago, locked into position by the ribbons he had wound and tangled about his wrist: the only tether holding Susan above the river that swelled twenty feet below her dainty boots.

_Please, I cannot bear this much longer!_

Lightning had splintered a tree mere feet from the path, and Neehana - the dear mare who had shared many of Susan's scheming races - had fallen violently with a wooden spear through her left flank. Already moving to avoid a snapped ankle, Susan had rolled the wrong way - towards the cliff edge nearly hidden in the mist. There was no thought save to catch her, and succeed Edmund did, before the momentum snatched him from the rocks and his scrabbling hands latched onto empty air. He lashed out, grasping for a handhold - anything - and by some miracle was yanked to a sudden halt, his fingers tangling in the ribbons of Susan's dress before the gentle head smacked against the cliff side.

He only recognized the miracle in a half stupor, long after his throat had given out.

_Aslan, oh Aslan help us!_

Blood trickled down his shoulder, creeping from his sodden sleeve where crimson had stained the blue cloth. From a jagged tear in his gauntlet protruded a white, jagged spear: the broken shaft of a young sapling burrowed into the cliff face. Their salvation, and his agony.

How he wished the mangled limb was as numb as the whole. With every breath, hanging as he was, a little more weight was braced on that wound. If not for the binding gauntlet the branch might have torn straight through his wrist by now. If not for Susan, he might have wished it so.

"Aslan," Edmund gasped, squeezing his eyes shut as the wind swayed him centimeters to the right. "Send someone quickly!"

Would Phillip have reached Cair Paravel by now? How much time had passed since his hoof beats faded? Minutes? Hours? Surely it had been longer, yet Susan had yet to wake. Edmund dreaded the implications, squinting to see if her shoulders swayed in shallow breaths or tugs of the wind. _Not a corpse, please Aslan._

Another gust of wind tore a hoarse sound from him; a brush of sound that he could barely hear over swishing pine boughs. His strength was gone. If not for the tethers and the rod in his arm he would have slipped to his death eons ago.

"Aslan, I cannot hold on," Edmund whispered. His voice stuttered, fragmented by cold and shock and pain. "Won't you stop it? I can't..."

If only he were numb through, he could bear it. If only the excruciating snap of bone and ripping flesh would stop echoing every time his arm throbbed, he could wait patiently. Something vital had been flayed - a nerve perhaps, Orius had described the consequences of a nicked wrist very clearly the first time he forgot to wear his gauntlets - and a piercing stab of light throbbed from his fingers to the back of his eyes with each heartbeat.

_Oh Aslan, make it stop! Bring an end to this, please!_

The branch creaked and Edmund gasped, his voice stolen before it could rasp. Blackness swarmed the cliff side and suddenly he couldn't see, couldn't feel anything save the invisible blade slicing through muscle and bone. A piercing cry filled his ears, a holler of grief thundering to the skies, as devastating loss bled into the words, _"Why have you forsaken me?"_ and then he saw.

A man shadowed in unnatural night, slumped against splintering crossed beams, his body painted with the rusted scarlet of fresh and old blood. His chest heaved as he forced his body up with each breath, bracing himself on a spike rammed between the bones of his feet. Lacy threads of flayed skin webbed around his chest. His face was unrecognizable, swollen and bruised, gouged by thorns scraping millimeters from his eyes.

Edmund screamed.

This was the moment he had squandered, that terrible wakeful night when he was too ashamed and afraid to follow Aslan from the camp. The Stone Table. Here was braced a man, not a Lion, and yet he knew that somehow they were one, that it was the same love that swelled over him and crushed him as the King's voice cried out, "Father, forgive them!"

The mist cleared and Edmund sobbed, hiding his face in the crook of his throbbing shoulder, the stab of white light a commiserating peal as he blinked and saw again the iron spikes protruding from a man's swollen wrists, curling his fingers into white claws.

_Oh Aslan, they didn't... this couldn't gave been..._

The voice was gentle and still, devoid of blame. **"For this world too, I have slain the deep magic."**

_What have we done?_ Weeping, Edmund ducked his head in shame. He vaguely remembered stories his mother read from the Bible at night, before Dad left and ritual became a luxury of the past. There were evil kings and men who rode fiery chariots, and stories about fishermen... oh why couldn't he remember?

_"He was wounded for our transgressions..."_ Words unlearned and unfamiliar branded his mind, a tender fire stripping away his ignorance. Words he had ignored while he twiddled away the minutes, slouched in a wooden pew.

_Aslan, you knew even then what I would become, and you looked on me with kindness._

Was it anguish or pride that he felt, to share the King's wounds? Staring at the branch that pierced his wrist, the bloodstained wood that had saved his own life and that of his sister, Edmund wet his lips and hardened his aching soul. For a moment he understood the way of the deep magic. The pain, the love, the unflinching passion wrapped around such fragile lives as those of men and beasts. Such love had earned a loyalty that could never be defaced. No man of London or Narnia could ever betray again, once such a price was understood.

"Ed!"

Blinking against the mist, Edmund craned his neck, groaning as the muscles strained. Dusk, was it dusk already? He could barely feel the pain. How long had it been?

"Edmund!" Lucy's voice, clear and punctuated with fear.

Rasping, Edmund strove to answer, his tongue clumsy and thick between his teeth.

"Ed, hold on!" Peter's call. A joyous sound he thought he'd never hear again. "We're sending down a rope!"

"He can't..." Horrified words of caution were drowned out as Edmund dropped his head, too weary to listen. His chest stuttered as burning, terrified eyes latched onto his own. Lilting in the wind, saved only by his blackening fingers entwined in silk ribbons, Susan looked up at him through tears.

"Ed...!" she choked, her eyes flitting remorsefully between his damaged hands. "You'll be all right. We'll fix it! Just don't - don't fall asleep again. Keep talking to me!"

Edmund smiled. Calmness swept over him, like the peacefulness of rain pattering against the courtyard stones. He felt little pain. "It's all right, Su. Aslan's been here. He's been here all along."

He would say it again later, when he woke in his room with a scar on his wrist and a trembling admission from Lucy that she feared the cordial would not be enough to save his hands. When Susan woke the castle with her screams, terrified of falling endlessly, or seeing her brother hanging lifeless with hisfingers wrapped around her ribbons, and the night claiming her as she hung abandoned by all of Narnia. She clung to Peter, crying as she declared that even Mum and Dad had appeared in her terrors and left her alone, and still Edmund whispered in comfort, "Aslan was there. He didn't leave us."

"Why can't you tell me?" Peter asked weeks later, when he hunted Edmund down in the library. Concern softened his words, while anxiety speared his tongue. _Surely you also bear the same fears as Susan, _was the unspoken certainty.

"I've told you everything," Edmund answered. He sighed and made room for Peter to sit beside him, lightly skimming his finger down elegant English script, now faded and blotched with time. "I never noticed this. It's Queen Helen's handwriting. Orius said she wrote down everything she could remember from the Time Before."

"Before Narnia?" Peter said in disbelief.

"Before she was queen," Edmund clarified. "She wrote down her memories - mostly family - but this book only contains..."

"By his wounds we are healed," Peter read softly. Trailing into silence, he waited for an agonizing moment and then asked cautiously, "What are you reading, Ed?"

_You recognize it?_ Edmund wanted to shout. Fingers trembling, he gently turned the crackling page. "Orius says there's sections that match with the old Narnian prophecies. They've kept it all these years - even used it as a basis for teaching letters to the little ones. It's incredible, Peter, entire generations of Narnians raised on..."

"I know," Peter interjected softly. He looped his arms around his knees, as sober as the day he had begged Edmund to do as he was told, to never again thrust himself into harm's way lest the cordial be too late. "I know, Ed. I learned all of this in Sunday School."

Dumbstruck, Edmund stared at him in disbelief. "You never told me?"

Guilt jaded Peter's eyes as he answered, "What was there to tell you? I didn't believe any of it myself. Not until..."

"Until Aslan," Edmund murmured

"Until Aslan," Peter confirmed. Scrubbing a hand across his nose and muttering something about dust allergies, he tapped the ancient book and said soberly, "I'll look through it a bit. When you're finished."

Wriggling to give his brother some room, Edmund opened the book to its previous entry. "It's raining. You haven't anything better to do."

"But we're already having so much fun," Peter drawled, reviving that childhood jest with which they used to tease one another every time it rained. Edging in closer, he peered at the faded ink, tapping his finger whenever he was ready for Edmund to turn the page.

Long hours passed before the girls found them, still hunched over the ancient words of prophecy. The peace of Aslan had settled across the library like sunbeams.

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"But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed." Isaiah 53:5


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